A Hero's Welcome?

Like so many other casualties of war that few of us will ever hear of, they are only useful to the military as PR or bullet stoppers!

Soldier in famous photo never defeated 'demons'

In a letter to post commander Maj. Gen. Robert Lennox, Knapp expressed anger that Army officials who were "proud to display him as a hero ... now had turned their back on him..."

"Joseph Dwyer who had left to Iraq one of the nicest, kindest, caring, self-sacrificing and patriotic people I have ever known," she wrote, "was forced to witness and commit acts completely contrary to his nature and returned a tormented, confused disillusioned shadow of his former self that was not being given the help he needed."

Zeiss said the best treatment for PTSD is exposure-based psychotherapy, in which the patient is made "to engage in thoughts, feelings and conversations about the trauma." While caregivers must be 100 percent committed to creating an environment in which the veteran feels comfortable confronting those demons, she said the patient must be equally committed to following through.

"And so it's a dance between the clinicians and the patient."

Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, feels the VA is a lousy dance partner.

I can only say two more things about this article between my tears:

1) I couldn't agree more with the conclusion in the last sentence posted above,

and,

2) WHAT... THE... FUCK?!

Read the whole article here, here, or here. (This last link is where the above quotes come from).

You can sign the Joseph Dwyer Guest book here.

(A Special Thanks to Happy In Nevada for finding some of these links for us!)